


An Exercise in Trespassing

by thatmasquedgirl



Series: A Taste of the Pomegranate [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Dogs, F/M, First Meetings, IT'S BEEN A WHILE BUT I'M FINALLY BACK, Meet-Cute, Olicity Summer Sizzle 2019, One Shot, Slow Burn, hello friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 12:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatmasquedgirl/pseuds/thatmasquedgirl
Summary: Oliver was prepared for many things in his crusade, but not her.Another way Oliver and Felicity could have met, this time with a play on Greek mythology and a matchmaking dog.Written for Olicity Summer Sizzle 2019.Prompt:  Puppies and dogs





	An Exercise in Trespassing

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO EVERYONE! I have been writing things for _months_ without getting anything worked out. Combined with a lot of long hours at work and some distractions, that means no things written. I'm hoping Olicity Summer Sizzle will change that, since they have a lot of good prompts. I'm not so worried about filling out my bingo cards as I am getting back into writing.
> 
> This is a sort of modern mythology thing. Originally I had planned this to fill the "Greek god AU" slot, but with the addition of a certain dog, I felt like this would be better as the "dogs and puppies" slot. I'm hoping to do another one for the Greek god AU slot, maybe with a little more steam and further into their relationship.
> 
> For reference, [here](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/4e/c0/ae/4ec0ae5afc6c6154b46d0a4a4585d78a.jpg) is the version of the Hades and Persephone myth that I'm choosing to use for the basis of this modern Greek mythology thing. I've seen the arguments that it isn't true, but here's the thing: I don't care. I like it a lot better than the version where she's abducted, so I'm choosing to go with that.
> 
> Thank y'all for reading! I hope you enjoy it! :)

As she glances up at the starry sky, Felicity realizes it’s far too late for her to be out, especially in the Glades. She pulls her coat tighter around her as she takes in the new people lurking on the sidewalks. Instead of tired laborers in work clothes, now the streets are filled with ladies in little clothing and men who stand around and eye her with appraisal.

Shivering under the stare of one man with a lecherous grin, she places her hands in her pockets. Her left finds the pepper spray on her keyring, while her right settles on her tazer. Even her dog—a white Ibizan hound with brown spots, cleverly named “Spot” by her previous owner—releases a low growl at the sight of him. Felicity only tugs at the leash, urging her on as they both pick up the pace.

Despite that, it doesn’t deter her from her mission. Her latest project at work has her logging far too many hours at home, and mint chocolate chip ice cream is what keeps her brain working long into the night. If she knew Walter Steele’s project would send her running after the ghost of a corporation through a hall of mirrors, she would have turned him down.

But now she has the taste of a mystery, and she won’t let go until it’s solved.

When they turn to go down a side street, Felicity finds herself alone with only Spot for company. There isn’t any traffic down Queen Parkway because there isn’t any reason for it; the factory closed down years before she moved to Starling City. Even the street sign is unrecognizable now, covered with various spray paint and graffiti.

As she comes up to the gates, Felicity stops short, the way she always does. If Tempest, LLC is a ghost in a hall of mirrors, then Queen Industrial, Inc. is a longstanding memorial to what the city used to be. From what she’s heard, it used to supply fifteen hundred jobs in the city in its glory days, and the decline of the Glades followed after Robert Queen closed it.

Spot barks, making Felicity jump as it echoes between the tall buildings around them. Spot pulls on her leash, sniffing near the gate. “That’s not a good idea, girl,” Felicity tells her. “If we trespass in _there_ , we might not make it back out. That building is like a labyrinth—all it’s missing is the Minotaur.”

Chuckling at her own joke, Felicity continues on her path, stopping short when Spot doesn’t budge. She turns to study the dog, only to find her staring back defiantly. Sighing, Felicity walks back to her, picking up nearly sixty pounds of stubborn, determined dog before continuing on her path.

Spot struggles against her, whining. A flurry of paws and hair causes them both to go down, making Felicity land so hard on her side that she sees stars for a moment. When she can open her eyes again, it’s to find Spot running around the corner of the Queen Industrial building.

Heart pounding in her chest, Felicity stands up and takes after her. “Spot, come here!” she cries out, following the sound of four paws on concrete. She turns the corner just in time to watch a flash of white and a pink leash disappear through the chain-link fence.

The break in the fence is subtle. If she hadn’t watched Spot disappear through it, Felicity never would have known it was there. The fencing has been carefully cut away, the only hole at the bottom. She shoves on the fencing, and it gives her just enough room to pass through.

Though she has stopped to sniff the air, Spot takes off just as Felicity enters the steelyard. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the stitch in her side, she chases after her. She only pulls up short after watching Spot disappear into the depths of the abandoned steel factory.

A Greek myth immediately pops into her head, and Felicity wonders if this is how Persephone felt when she stumbled upon the gate to the Underworld.

With a resigned sigh, she pulls out her phone and turns on the flashlight app before entering the factory. The building may have seen better days, but it doesn’t creak or groan around her, so she takes that as a plus. “Spot!” she tries again, turning to see if she can catch her under the flashlight.

Spot barks once, stopping only long enough for Felicity to catch her with the flashlight. The hound descends a set of stairs into the basement, through a hole in a collapsed section of the floor. Though she hesitates at the top of the rickety metal stairs, Felicity squares her shoulders before descending one step at a time.

She expects to find her dog exploring a dark basement, the remnants of an old workshop stretching before her. Instead, the basement is lit by a set of flood lights, illuminating two tables under a soft yellow glow. One of them houses a computer that would have been considered ancient fifteen years ago, the other full of green arrows.

That alone should enough to make her stop breathing, but it’s the scene playing out in front of her that makes her stop short. Tail wagging, Spot stares up lovingly at a man in green leather from head to toe. A quiver is strapped to his back, a bow in one hand. A hood shades most of his face, except for a sharp jaw covered in stubble.

His name is whispered around the halls of Queen Consolidated. The man in the green hood takes on the worst of Starling’s elite night after night, rising up like personification of vengeance for the Glades. In these broken streets, his name is cheered as a hero’s should be.

Her dog just made friends with the Starling City Vigilante.

Spot barks once before nudging him with her paw, making the vigilante stare down at her as though seeing a dog for the first time. “Spot?” he croaks, his voice rough but gentle at the same time. “Is that you, girl?”

He crouches on his knees before taking off his gloves and throwing them on the table. Carefully, he reaches for the pink collar with donuts on it, fingers resting on the tag off it. Spot barks again, this time jumping up to lick his face. A smile comes to the emerald archer’s lips as he pets her.

“That is way more adorable than it should be.”

The words have the vigilante on his feet in an instant, his shoulders tense as he turns to her. Felicity holds her hands up. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your… super secret vigilante justice thing. I just came because my dog ran off.”

She motions to Spot. “Well, I guess she’s _your_ dog, too, because Spot doesn’t react like that to just anyone. I found her in a shelter. She was the saddest dog there, just laying in the bottom of her kennel and not reacting to anything. The workers told me that they were going to have to…” She makes a slicing motion across her throat. “…because she had been there for three years and was considered un-adoptable. I just couldn’t let that happen.”

He only stares at her. Though she can’t see his eyes, his gaze still manages to be powerful enough to lock her to the spot. “I guess if you lost her, I should give her back,” she continues, her words tripping over themselves as they rush out to fill the silence. “I don’t want to be accused of stealing anyone’s dog. Especially not such an awesome dog.” Part of her hopes he'll shoot her with an arrow just so she can stop talking.

Instead, the vigilante picks up the end of Spot’s pink leash and whistles. Spot follows his every step as he closes in on Felicity. With slow, methodical motions, he reaches for Felicity’s hand, placing the leash in it. His hand is rough and callused against hers, but his touches are the softest she’s ever felt.

“She’s yours,” he tells her in a quiet voice, softer and kinder than she expects from the terror of Starling City. “I… went away and my family… couldn’t handle her anymore. Thank you for taking care of her.”

Felicity knows she should be terrified. There are six small, pointy, knife-like things in a sleeve of his jacket and the man himself is much more threatening than any weapon in the room. Red stains cling to the green leather, though he doesn’t appear to be bleeding. A scar starts just above the zipper on his jacket and slides up his neck. The hands around the pink leash could just as easily snap her neck.

Despite that, the vigilante offers her the barest hint of a soft smile, his expression displaying the kindness only possible from someone who has suffered unspeakable tragedy.

This man is not a murderer or a cold-blooded killer. Felicity feels that with all the certainty of her soul. He isn’t Ares, the god who lusts for war and the next battle with blood lust in his eyes and heart. The man in front of her is Hades: shoulders sagging under the responsibility of caring for so many people, a gentle soul forced into a fight that was never really his.

“Will you tell me your name?” is all he asks of her.

“Felicity,” she stutters out after a moment. Her voice is breathless under the weight of his gaze, intense and only for her. “Felicity Smoak.”

A war is fought in his expression before he finally releases her hand to pull back his hood. The face that greets her is a lovely one. Impossibly blue eyes sit over a crooked nose, though green paint is smeared across his eyes instead of a mask. A familiar, lopsided smile pulls at his lips, though she usually sees it on tabloid covers that don’t do his attractiveness justice.

He holds out a hand to shake as he tells her what she already knows: “I’m Oliver Queen.”

Shaking the extended hand, Felicity swallows hard. “I know.” He blinks twice and she rushes on to explain, “I work at Queen Consolidated. In the IT Department. It’s hard not to recognize you from the pictures on Mrs. Queen’s desk—even with the horrible haircut you had back then.”

Felicity winces. “I mean, you were still cute in spite of it, but this is a much better look for you. Less boy band, more dark and dangerous.” She sighs, cursing her gift for making everything more awkward. Here he is, revealing his identity to her, and she’s passing judgment on his previous fashion choices. “And I promise I’ll stop talking in three… two… one.” She closes her eyes.

They fly open when he lets out a low chuckle. The smile isn’t quite there, but his eyes look lighter at least. That’s something. “I can walk you home, if you like,” he offers. The smile slips from his face. “The Glades aren’t a good place to be at night.”

With a wicked smile pulling on her lips, Felicity takes the tazer out of her pocket and presses the button on it. It crackles with electricity. “You don’t have to worry about saving me, Oliver,” she assures him. His name feels surprisingly comfortable on her tongue. “I can take care of myself.”

Though she turns to take Spot and leave, she sees the abysmal computer set up out of the corner of her eye. “Will you be here tomorrow night?” she asks. Oliver studies her for a long moment before offering a slow, short nod. “Good. I’ll switch your computer out for a model from this century. I’ll see you around seven, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, she starts up the stairs, leaving an open-mouthed Oliver Queen behind her.

* * *

It’s almost ten by the time Oliver pulls his bike into the abandoned factory, cursing his mother for holding him up with questions. Sighing, he hopes his new… acquaintance didn’t leave. While he barely spent five minutes with Felicity, something tells him she’s worth keeping in his life.

He descends the stairs to a bubbly pop song playing. Spot meets him at the base of the stairs, and Oliver stops to pet her before turning to his work area. A smile overtakes him at once.

The light, breezy voice he thought was just a backup singer is Felicity singing along. She lies under the computer desk, screwing some sort of device to hold cords underneath it, her toes tapping along to the beat. Her toenails are painted with pink pig faces, her shoes thrown to the side. Her blonde ponytail splays onto the floor and her shoulder, pulling his attention to her gray button-down with a black cat face on one side, toward the hem.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he calls over the music.

Felicity yelps, bolting upright so fast she hits her head on the table. Her glasses go askew at an odd angle as she groans and rubs the top of her head. Frowning at himself, Oliver rushes to her, sliding the desk back. “Are you all right?” Oliver asks.

She only groans before reaching up absently to press the off button on her speaker. Without waiting for a more coherent response, he gathers her in his arms and places her in the metal table he uses for making arrows, pushing all his supplies to the side.

“I didn’t expect you to be so quiet,” she mutters, rubbing at her scalp. “Are you a ninja, or do you just float two inches above the ground?”

“I think you were a little preoccupied,” he answers, sliding his fingers to the elastic in her hair. He untwists it from her ponytail, letting her hair fall free. Oliver presses against the top of her skull, trying to determine the extent of the damage. “You have a nice voice.”

When she squirms under his touch, he glances down to find a light dusting of pink across Felicity’s cheeks. “I thought you were trying to avoid me,” she admits in a quiet voice. “I realized last night after I got home that I might have been a little pushy, and I probably should have asked before bringing Spot, but I—”

“Felicity.” He has only to say her name, and those full, fuchsia-painted lips pause, her mouth still open. If he was the same man he’d been five years ago, he would have kissed her. Now, he only smiles. “You and Spot are will always be welcome here.”

For the life of him, he can’t understand _why_ she’d want to come back. He’s the emerald archer, the nightmare of Starling City. This place holds nothing but violence and loneliness. Oliver may not have any choice in the matter, but _she_ does.

Her mouth opens with no sound before she finally says, “Oh.”

He doesn’t respond, only pressing his fingers against her scalp. “I think your head will be fine,” he tells her finally, taking a step back.

She licks her lips before wiping at a sheen of sweat at the top of her forehead. “Do you have something to drink around here?” she asks. “I worked up a sweat carrying my computer parts down earlier.”

Turning to a mini-fridge in the corner, Oliver opens it, passing her a bottle of water. She twists the cap open absently, not bothering to check that the seal is intact before gulping down a quarter of the bottle. When she licks her lips again, Oliver’s eyes follow the motion.

Oblivious, Felicity slides off the table, tilting her head up to smile at him. “Thanks,” she answers, her voice bright. She rises on her toes to kiss his cheek. His skin grows warm under her touch, and he finds the same feeling in his chest. Oliver barely refrains from stroking his fingers over the place her lips had just been.

Curls bouncing with every step, Felicity turns back to the computer desk and the brand new monitor sitting there. “Who are we arrow-ing today?” she asks, that smile still in place. “I researched your last two targets and realized you’re following Laurel Lance’s cases. They haven’t announced a new one on the news.”

All he can do is stare for several moments. This bubbly, striking blonde just bounces into his life with the dog his mother gave away and somehow manages to turn his life upside down. She should be terrified of him, but instead, she walks into his mission as though she’s always belonged there.

“You should be afraid of me,” he says to her. It’s both a warning and a sigh of relief.

“I’ve seen what you’re capable of out there,” she answers with a shrug, tapping her pink fingernails against the table behind her. “I know you do it to protect these people, who have been preyed upon for years.”

She scoffs. “You think I’d be afraid of you because you’ve killed people? Because you can shoot a bow or snap someone’s neck with your bare hands? You do it for the sake of other people, to make this city a better place.“ Felicity tilts her head, a smile pulling at her lips. ”That makes you one of the good guys as far as I’m concerned.“

Shaking his head at her, Oliver pulls the weathered book out of his pocket and hands it to her. “My father gave me this before he…” Flashes of images pass through his head, ending with his father’s suicide. “He died. He told me these men were the worst of the worst, and that I needed to stop them.” He shifts in place. “Pick whichever one you want.”

Felicity flips through the pages, running her fingers over where _Adam Hunt_ is already marked through. A smirk crosses her lips before she turns to a random page, closing her eyes and twisting her pointer finger onto a random name. “Scott Morgan it is,” she decides.

With a nod to herself, she slides into the chair, her fingers flying over the keyboard of the new computer she set up. Oliver takes steps forward, leaning over her shoulder to read the information she pulls up on the internet. While he can’t read it as fast as her, there’s nothing good there.

“I have Morgan’s address,” she declares, turning to face him. A dark expression crosses her face, and Oliver can’t help but wonder if he isn’t the only one with some darkness inside him. “He runs a water and power company here in the Glades. He jacks up the prices for an extra profit. When people can’t pay his rates, he shuts them off—even in the dead of winter.” Her expression hardens. “He needs to pay.”

Before he can ask any questions, she’s out of her chair, digging around in her purse. “I’ll need your phone,” she calls out. He places it on the desk as she continues scrounging in her large, purple handbag. “If you keep in touch with me, I can hack into traffic cams and satellite feeds so that I can give you reports of your situation.”

When Oliver blinks twice, she explains, “I used to do a little hacking. The city’s grid is practically in the Stone Ages with their cybersecurity. It won’t be difficult for me to get in.”

Waving a hand as though she hadn’t admitted to several felonies, Felicity continues, “I’m going to connect my Bluetooth headset to your phone.” She picks up his phone, making a noise in her throat as she bypasses the lock screen. “You should really have more security features. A blind panda could hack into this.”

Not giving him a chance to respond, she reaches up to clip the headset over his ear. “Now you’ll be able to talk to me whenever you need me.” After a few more taps, her own phone starts ringing a cheery tune. She answers, switching it to speaker. “I’ll have to come up with something different later.”

When he can do nothing else but stare, she gives him a shove in the direction of his green suit. “Go hood up or whatever it is you do. We have a criminal to catch.”

Though he grabs his leathers as he passes, he can’t help but stare at her. The flood lights illuminate the collapsing building, columns with rust and crumbling concrete. In the midst of all the decay, there is Felicity, with her too bright lipstick and blonde curls, most likely with a tazer concealed in the pockets of her purple peacoat draped over the task chair she must have brought with her.

Something about it reminds him of an old story he vaguely remembers from a course in Greek mythology. The details are fuzzy with age, but he remembers Persephone, the goddess of spring, spending part of her time in the Underworld. Sunshine and roses, finding a home in the unforgiving walls of Hell.

Maybe, just maybe, he might have found his own Persephone.


End file.
